Video: Jobs Pitches New ‘Mothership’ to Approving Cupertino City Council

Steve Jobs made a very successful presentation this week to a friendly, receptive audience. No, another one.

A day after handling part of Monday’s keynote at Apple’s 2011 Worldwide Developers Conference, Jobs showed up at the Cupertino, California, city council to start the ball rolling on a new proposed headquarters that, like a lot of what Apple designs, is like nothing you’ve ever seen.

The new Apple HQ would be a huge, four-story doughnut-shaped building, designed to house 12,000 employees. Apple has 9,500 now, but only 2,600 are at One Infinite Loop with the rest spread out all over town in rented buildings, Jobs told the council. The land itself — purchased from Hewlett-Packard, where Jobs once had a summer job — would go from 20 percent landscaped to 80 percent, with 90 percent of the parking in a four-level underground garage.

There is lots and lots of glass in the proposed design, and it is all curved — “We know how to make the biggest pieces of glass in the world for architectural use,” Jobs said, based on the company’s bricks-and-mortar business. And it sure looks like some sort of UFO, a fact not lost on the council.

Jobs got an little ovation when he was introduced, and there was plenty of picture-taking by the audience, which (ahem) sure seemed big for a city council meeting. But the CEO of the company which is the single biggest taxpayer in Cupertino also got the VIP treatment from visibly fawning council members.

It’s clear everyone knows the score: To a softball question about why this project would be good for the people of Cupertino, Jobs begins his reply with a small smile and the all-too-clear message that it would be shame if Apple had to, say, move to nearby Mountain View.

When Mayor Wong, holding up his prized iPad 2, made a half-in-jest request for an Apple store in his fair city as a way for the company to “give back,” Jobs doesn’t even throw hizzoner a tiny bone.

“The problem with putting an Apple Store in Cupertino is there just isn’t the traffic,” he replied with a straight demeanor. “So I am afraid it might not be successful. It’s got be successful.”

Apple wants to break ground next year, and move in by 2015. Based on Tuesday’s proceedings, there would seem to be no chance of any repeat in the sort of runaround treatment Jobs got in posh Woodside over another building project.

Consider the nearly certain acceptance of the UFO building as another successful product launch for Jobs and his “reality-distortion” field.